The subject which we have chosen for this plenary session is
of exceptional importance to our work. We have already referred
on other occasions and in other contexts to the need for
organized co-operation between libraries. What is exceptional
about our present discussion on the subject is that it is taking
place in a new and distinctive climate. Previously, our
discussions and debates on various problems have been greatly
affected by numerous factors which lay outside our field of work;
consequently the solutions adopted were similarly affected by
factors which sometimes failed to give due weight to points that
were essential to the successful work and development of the
library service. These extraneous factors have now lessened in
importance and a correspondingly greater role is now also played
by the people who work in the libraries as they, together with
people working in other fields, jointly plan both the development
of the library network and ways of meeting the demand for books
by individual and group users. Thus we are now involved as an
equal and a key element in the evolution of the library network,
with a consequent growth in responsibility. In this context we
shall briefly describe the new social conditions in which we now
work and the main social and professional tasks which we face. We
shall cite specific examples with a view to illustrating the need
for and the feasibility of working together when analysing and
resolving a number of problems. This should by no means be
interpreted as suggesting that these are our only problems nor
that they are the most important or the most urgent ones. We
mention them to emphasize the need to resolve them through the
process of seeking agreement with one another on the basis of
self-management.

I

The basic law on the management of State industrial
enterprises and the larger economic associations by workers'
collectives was passed in 1950. This law proclaimed the principle
of direct participation by the workers in the running of
industrial working organizations. Following the adoption of this
law, self-management developed and was consolidated in industrial
working organizations; it also gradually split over into other
areas of social relations and non-industrial working
organizations.

Our Republic's first Libraries Act, which contained very
important provisions on library administration based on
self-management principles, was adopted in 1960. Under this Act,
library work was defined as work of special importance to society
and this was also reflected in the besting of
self-management-based decision-making powers in external
representatives on library board.

The establishment of the funds for the promotion of cultural
activities in 1968 changed society's attitude to library
activities. However, despite such developments in social
relations, the control of expenditure on the expansion of
production and other activities remained largely in the hands of
the State. The State also retained a very important function as
intermediary between various spheres of associated labour,
especially in meeting society's educational, scientific, cultural
and health needs and other social functions. These were obstacles
which prevented the development of these activities from keeping
pace with the real needs of the working people and other
citizens. The new constitution of the SFRY and the new republican
constitutions, which were promulgated in 1974 after several years
of intense public debate, eliminated the last vestiges of State
control over national capital formation. They also based every
aspect of social relations on self-management. The new
constitutions established the principle that working people in
all areas of society, that is those engaged in material
production and those in other kinds of work, exchange their
labour with one another on an equal footing in a joint endeavour
to produce new material and spiritual wealth. To this end, they
enter into mutual relations based on self-management and they
evolve various forms of social contract with one another on the
basis of self-management. The new vital relationships and the
exchange of labour based on self-management, as provided for in
these constitutions, received statutory form in the law on
Associated Labour, passed at the end of 1976.

For us it is important to note at this point that libraries,
which had formerly been financed from a variety of State and
social sources, now found themselves in a situation which obliged
them to establish relations with associated labour in a new way,
by preparing, both directly and through self-managing communities
with shared interests, adequate programmes to be dealt with by
the process of agreement-seeking and by taking into account, in
the course of the adoption of these programmes, the real needs of
their own areas and those of associated labour.

Apart from the Law on Associated Labour and other acts and
statutory instruments regulating the activity of working
organizations, libraries also have an Act of their own, as well
as a number of other normative instruments to regulate their
functions and organization and the mutual relations between them
in conformity with the Libraries Act.

The Libraries Act was passed in Croatia in 1960. It was
thoroughly revised and brought textually into line with the new
Constitution of 1965, while a number of minor additions and
amendments were made to it in 1966. A new Library Activity and
Libraries Act was passed in 1973. The Act contains, inter alia,
a number of basic formulations concerning the need for libraries
to pool their resources and for their joint activity, and it is
this aspect which most interests us at the moment. The Act
states:

'Library activity is a social activity based on the principles
of self-management, whose purpose is to use books as a means of
promoting the general education of the people, to satisfy the
cultural needs of working and other people on a lasting basis and
to promote scientific work and research, thereby influencing the
development of the economy, of education, science, culture and
other activities'.

'In order to achieve the aims of library activity, people
working in that sphere shall co-operate, seek agreement and
discuss problems with each other and also with working and other
people in other spheres of associated labour and with the users
of the library service; they shall also use self-management
agreements and social contracts to establish and maintain direct
self-management relations and shall pool resources with them in
order to realize and harmonize their mutual interests and in
order to agree programmes for the development and promotion of
library activities'.

'In order to promote mutual co-operation and resolve questions
of mutual interest, independent libraries and libraries
incorporated in other bodies may form library communities or
enter into other kinds of partnership.'

The Act pays particular attention to the definition and
formulation of the tasks of the central services and central
libraries as representing a very important form of co-operation
between libraries, aimed at ensuring a high professional standard
and equal level for all in the work and development of the
library network both in the narrow and in the wider spheres of
their activity.

'In order to carry out constant, organized and systematic work
aimed at promoting library activities, a number of libraries will
also provide central services for other libraries in a particular
area and for a particular category of libraries'.

Central library services comprise in particular: the organized
and ongoing study of questions of interest to library activities
as a whole; the study of questions of mutual interest to library
activities in a particular area or a particular category of
libraries; improved organization and methods of work in library
activities and librarianship as a profession; the preparation of
expert proposals to expand the library network; expert assistance
and instructions to libraries; the professional supervision of
library activities; the monitoring and co-ordination of the way
libraries work and promotion of mutual co-operation between them;
and professional training of library staff.

On the basis of the Library Activity and Libraries Act, the
Council for Libraries of the Socialist Republic of Croatia
adopted a set of rules on central library services in the
Socialist Republic of Croatia at a session held on 19 April 1977.
These rules provide expert advice on how to organize the central
services in any particular area.

At its annual meeting in 1973 the Federation of Library
Associations of Yugoslavia adopted 'Minimum Yugoslav Standards
for Community Libraries' and 'Minimum Yugoslav Standards for
School Libraries'. These laid down minimum standards for all
circumstances, while it was left to the Republics and the
Provinces to set higher library standards appropriate to their
own particular conditions and possibilities.

We in Croatia face the complex task of producing our own
library standards on the basis of preparatory work to date and of
our own conditions, with further reference to Yugoslav and
international standards in addition to Unesco's manifesto on
public libraries. Adoption of the standards laid down in this
important normative document will help establish the necessary
mutual ties between libraries within the unified library system
in our Republic.

What should be clearly understood and borne in mind is the
fact that in our relationships in society the lead given by those
who actually work in the libraries is of decisive importance, and
that whether our activities develop faster or slower depends on
this lead and on the establishment of the appropriate
self-management relations with associated labour. For us the Law
on Associated Labour constitutes the legislative and social
foundations from which we proceed in our efforts to ensure for
the library services the status and treatment in associated
labour which they deserve by virtue of their social importance
and the way in which they meet social needs. This cannot and will
not be done for us by anyone else, nor shall we ourselves be able
to offer appropriate solutions, unless the library services as a
whole and every library unit individually establish mutual ties
through the process of self-management-based agreement-seeking,
and can organize themselves into a unified library and
information system. Within any particular region, or within one
municipality or more, it is possible to reach agreement with
associated labour on ways of exchanging labour either directly or
through the self-managing communities with shared interests by
offering to every user the potential services of all the
libraries within or even outside its area, as long as the
libraries concerned can reach agreement among themselves on how
they will jointly provide the services offered. In this way the
unified library network, about which we often speak and whose
importance we constantly reiterate, would be created in practice,
gradually and without legislative norms on a basis of real needs
and at a rate dictated by those needs and on foundations afforded
by self-management. Initial experiences in establishing
associated labour either directly or through self-managing
communities with ties with/shared interest indicate that assembly
delegates representing associated labour have shown great
interest in and extended their support for the library service.
Consequently one may expect a considerable improvement in
conditions of work in the library service in the coming period;
but at the same time the library service may also be expected to
shoulder considerably greater obligations in conceiving and
planning its own development.

When we remember that the Library Activity and Libraries Act,
the Rules on Central Library Services and even the future
standards are Acts which regulate relationships and tasks within
the library service in principle only, without providing for any
forms of sanction or means of enforcement, it will be apparent
that their implementation can be ensured only through direct
agreements reached between the libraries and the users of library
services on the basis of the existing conditions, needs and
possibilities of the areas concerned.

Proceeding from the principle that in every area users should
be able to enjoy a library service through the library located in
their own area, it follows that such a library will not by itself
suffice for all the needs of its current and potential users.
Consequently, whenever we speak of a library we should in fact be
thinking of the library system as a whole in which the library
concerned is but a link in a chain, giving access to the services
of the whole library network. Everything that contributes to the
development of this concept of libraries must of necessity also
contribute to the development of every individual library,
because its potential can only be enhanced through the library
system. We have spoken on several occasions of the library system
as the fundamental prerequisite for the successful work of
individual kinds of library and individual libraries, but we have
not worked hard enough to build up such a system in practice and
make sure that it works.

The Law on Associated Labour and the Library Activity and
Libraries Act bind all the libraries to pool their resources on a
self-managing basis so that by exchanging labour they will he
able to realize optimum long-term development programmes for the
library system as a whole.

I I

In the light of the fundamental attitudes outlined above, a
number of questions also arise which should be borne in mind in
speaking about relations between libraries and their
self-management-based agreement-seeking and joint

It is necessary to regulate the activity of the central
service by self-management-based agreement in keeping
with actual conditions in the area concerned. In this way
the general provisions of the Library Activity and
Libraries Act in the Socialist Republic of Croatia which
relate to the central service would begin to be
implemented more successfully and yield the hoped-for
results. Using self-management-based agreements, the
central service could be organized as a service set up on
the general and shared interests of all to meet their
joint needs. This service would be given real tasks in
accordance with the actual situation and be provided with
the necessary funds with which to carry them out.

It is very important to ensure the uniform functioning of
the library network within a given area. It is impossible
for a small library to function successfully unless it
has been functionally incorporated into an appropriate
wider network of libraries with the support of which it
can provide its users with all the library services they
need. Nearly every library still tries to meet the needs
of the library users in its area on its own by relying on
its own staff and library stocks, a practice which leads
to uneconomical financing and a waste of trained staff.
The appropriate consultation instruments and signed
self-management-based agreements would clearly agree and
define the library network in a specific area and the
mutual relations, activity, and the rights and
obligations arising therefrom for every single library.

At this moment the mobile library service is perhaps the
most convenient and economical way relatively speedily
and successfully to meet the need for books in areas
where there are no permanent libraries. inter-municipal
and inter-library self-management-agreements on the
purchase and use of library vans would make possible a
more rational use of the funds available for the setting
up of a modern mobile library service and would replace
the independent and inadequate attempts made by
individual municipalities or libraries to resolve the
problems of those of their areas which have no

The activity of school and what are known as trade union
libraries and of a variety of library services for
schools and working organizations is also an important
area within our sphere of interest. In this area are to
be found various forms of partnership, pooling and
agreement-seeking mechanisms. If able to rely on a
central community library, a factory of school library
could by itself achieve a higher professional level and
function more rationally, as well as widening the extent
and range of its library services.

Faculties possess departmental libraries which comprise
very valuable and extensive stocks of books. These
libraries as a rule employ one or two specialists. There
is no reason why the specialists who work in these
libraries should not form an association on the basis of
agreement reached between individual groups at a faculty
in order to be able to discuss and propose solutions to a
series of questions of common interest to improve the
functioning of libraries, ranging from ways of using the
existing stocks of books and restocking and resolving
technical problems to the status of librarians in such
libraries and the question of broader functional links
between university libraries.

A large number of municipal community libraries operate
within the framework of workers' and adult education
centres, and this has considerably slowed down the
development of these libraries as regards the building up
and expansion of the library network, the size and
contents of their stocks of books and the number and
qualifications of the members of the staff and as regards
the way they perform their work and duties as municipal
records services. These libraries often lack the
necessary machinery to organize and set themselves up as
basic organizations of associated labour and consequently
do not possess the status of legal entities which would
enable them to exchange labour directly and hold
self-management-based consultations with other libraries
and working organizations. It is necessary in the
normative instruments of their working organizations to
ensure that they he given the kind of status which will
enable them to establish professional, staff and similar
ties with other libraries in the municipality, region or
republic to weld into a unified library and information
system.

Information services play an exceptionally important part
in every library. However, it is a fact that the smaller
libraries are not in a position to draw on sources of
information in various technical fields and that their
services accordingly fall unavoidably short of the level
of users' potential needs. This alienates such would-be
users from the libraries which they perceive as
inadequate information sources. The question of the use
of and access to information within the widest possible
library system should be resolved by means of a
self-management-based agreement enabling every library
unit to provide any technical information which may be
needed to any users within the shortest period of time.

Inter-library loans are a field of co-operation which
should also be regulated between individual categories of
libraries and between libraries within an area. A
self-management-based agreement should define mutual
rights and obligations and the mechanism of inter-library
loans, because inter-library loans are a way of
developing a library system in which the entire stock of
books of a given smaller or wider area is available to
every user through the library in his own area.

Qualified library staff are of exceptional importance for
the successful functioning of the library service.
Despite this, we have so far not yet found a successful
solution to the question of the regular training of
library staff from various levels and categories of
library work and duties. Instead they have been trained
with more or less success by practical work, attending
seminars, preparing for and sitting vocational
examinations, pursuing postgraduate studies, and so
forth.
The founding of a Chair of librarianship at the Faculty
of Philosophy in Zagreb and the introduction of library
specialization in reformed secondary schools in several
of the Republic's centres are the fruit of decisions and
approaches adopted at several assemblies and plenary
sessions of the Croatian Library Association.
The results of the newly initiated systematic training of
library staff call for continuous assessment, as does the
work being done to harmonize the programmers for graduate
and postgraduate studies and to standardize curricula in
secondary school centres with a library specialization.
Library staff to be trained within the framework of the
regular school system should be trained for an updated
library service and this goal should be reflected both in
the curricula and in the way teaching is organized and
carried out.
Long-term planning concerning staffing requirements,
including their level and skill, must become a permanent
practice in our libraries.
Library staff need to adopt agreed joint approaches to
all these questions if they are to be fit to be factors
in and protagonists of self-management-based relations
within a system based on the free exchange of labour.

The need to modernize libraries by gradually introducing
electronic and other technology can equally not be met
rationally in isolation for each library, town or even
region. Only by mutual agreement on the strictly
rationalized purchase and use of modern, compatible
equipment can the services be made available to the
greatest possible number of users.
If resources are to be used correctly, it is necessary to
standardize and systematize technical tasks. This too
calls for across-the-board technical activity and agreed
solutions.

Recent initiatives have taken place in a number of
quarters to deal with the problem of the role of books in
our society and to make books more accessible to working
people, but librarians have been insufficiently
represented at the relevant discussions and have not had
enough say in decision-making. One possible result is
that some of the solutions proposed will prove expensive
and unsuitable while, on the other hand, libraries will
not be given the opportunities or support they need to
fit themselves for systematic, varied, continuous and
flexible activity both in organizations of associated
labour and in local communities.
The social agreement on books should resolve the question
of publishing, distribution and the use of books, while
libraries must become equal participants in the system of
self-management-based agreement-seeking.

Society is investing considerable public money in books
and libraries and yet there is no specialized body or
institution systematically concerning itself with the
various sociological, cultural and economic aspects of
the production, distribution and use of books and with
the work of libraries as the main intermediary between
books and their readers. The very volume of the resources
invested in books and libraries argues the need to pay
long-term expert attention to some of the problems
associated with them and to see that individual problems
are thoroughly analysed and expertly presented to the
public. Some of these questions should be singled out for
consideration not later than in the next medium-term
period, and self-management-based discussion should be
used to set in motion the effort to resolve them or at
least to ensure through agreements that the appropriate
cadre and material prerequisites are available to study
and evaluate them and even to solve some of their
attendant aspects.

The possibilities and conditions for specialized work at
the National and University Library in Zagreb, the main
central library of our Republic, are of great importance
for the successful development of our whole library
network. It would be useful to discuss the question of
the concept of the future development of the National and
University Library and to agree on how to deal with the
urgent problem of staffing to enable this library to
perform its exceptionally important, social and
specialized functions as required by the Library Activity
and Libraries Act as soon as practicable.

A further series of very complex and important questions could
with advantage be dealt with within the library network and they,
too, should be the subject of self-management-based
agreement-seeking and co-operation between libraries. Such
questions are: the co-ordinated provision and centralized study
of library material, the unification and rationalization of other
specialized, technical and administrative duties, and so forth.

The implementation of the Law on Associated Labour and the
preparation of self-management-based agreements and normative
provisions in the basic organizations of associated labour call
for very complex activity by all the. libraries over relatively
short periods of time. Here, too, the libraries could, by
co-operating, organize joint elaboration of material, exchange
experience, exchange specialized papers and so forth. The
implementation of the Law on Associated Labour could, then, be a
topic for self-management-based discussions among libraries.

* * *

This account does not comprise the modalities of the internal
self-managing organization of libraries because that is not the
subject under discussion at this plenary session and also because
solutions for that type of organizational question were provided
in a clear form in the Law on Associated Labour. They are to be
implementated in the light of actual conditions and of the
principles of a unified and rational library service organized on
modern lines.

Some perplexity at the moment hangs over the question of
determining the minimum number of workers needed to form a basic
organization of associated labour. The Law on Associated Labour
fixes no number, but makes it a condition that the number of
workers should be such as to enable the basic organization
realize of associated labour to realize self-management-based
relations within it and to participate on a self-managing basis
through its delegates in various parts of the wider
self-management system. The social agreement will establish,
among further criteria, the minimum number of workers in a basic
organization of associated labour. The majority of the Republic's
libraries have relatively small staffs and this is especially
true of the municipal community libraries within the framework of
the workers' and adult education centres, hence the exceptional
importance of this question for the further development of
libraries in our country.

Since library activity is of particular social importance, the
self-management-based constituting of libraries should be based
on uniform socially agreed attitudes. The functional linking
together of the libraries of one or more municipalities or
regions would create the basic prerequisites for the creation of
a unified library and information service and combine optimum
results with a considerably more rational use of the resources
created by libraries through a free exchange of labour.

The central services of the National and University Library
and of the regional and municipal libraries should bear the main
brunt of the work of preparing specialized and other kinds of
groundwork on which to elaborate self-management-based agreements
to deal with these and with other questions.

By developing and promoting co-operation between libraries and
the basis of the Law of Associated Labour and the Library
Activity and Libraries Act, and by means of self-management-based
agreement-seeking and joint consultations, the associated
libraries will become, through their concept of development in
partnership, an important factor in the free exchange of labour
and the mainstay of the Republic's unified library and
information service.

DOCUMENTS

Law on Associated Labour 1976,Official
Gazetter of the SFRY, Issue 49/60.

Minimum Yugoslav Standards for Community Libraries, 1973.
Published in 'The Fifth Assembly of the Federation of
Library Associations of Yugoslavia', Belgrade,
Federation of Library Associations of Yugoslavia, 1974,
pp. 148-152.

Minimum Yugoslav Standards for School Libraries, 1973.
Published in 'The Fifth Assembly of the Federation of
Library Associations of Yugoslavia', Belgrade,
Federation of Library Associations of Yugoslavia, 1974,
pp. 153-157.